A new Sensory Bin and making Sophie's Portfolio

          I made the kids a new sensory bin the other day.  They had taken the rice one outside and scattered it all over the yard (planting rainbow seeds!), so I had to go hunt down my container and lid and wash them up first.  I have been seeing tons and tons of "recipes" for Cloud Dough, which is basically home made moon dough.  It was super simple, just a bag of flour and a cup or 2 of oil.  You can use any oil you want.... baby oil, vegetable oils, olive oil etc.  I had almost a whole bottle of baby oil so I used that, and had to add some veg. oil to get to the right consistency.  I also added a couple drops of tea tree oil.  We like the way it smells and it deters insects.  A word of warning with cloud dough is that it is MESSY.  Like every where messy.  And I couldn't figure out how to color it, so we kept it white.  The kids got some measuring tools, but quickly decided it was more fun to use dino figures and cars to make tracks in the fluffy dough.  This started a discussion on fossils and how they are formed.  Sophie was pretty into that, of course.  She's interested in anything from that period in history lol

       We've reached the point in the "school" year where I have to provide the county with some sort of evaluation proving I have taught her something productive.  We have chosen to do a portfolio, which I will send to a certified evaluator.  She will look through Sophie's work, decide whether she thinks she has learned enough to go into the 5th grade, and then I will submit her decision to the Board of Education.  I'm a little nervous, having never done this, but I feel confident in what we've achieved in the last couple months.  We have quite a few worksheet type things, and Sophie's reading/resources list is long.  She has read a ton of books and browsed many websites.  I'm going to have to make a run to walmart or CVS to print out some photos to include, but other than that, we have everything ready to send.  We have to turn in the evaluation by June 30th to the board, or they get all butt hurt, and I'm going to go head and send in my NOI (notice of intent) at the same time, through a certified letter.  We're going to continue to learn through the summer, since everything we do is learning, and we'll be reading A LOT.  I have some really cute ideas set aside for making lapbooks to go along with the Little House books we'll be reading, and to explore the West (think Lewis and Clark).  I think we'll do a lot of Math review over the summer too, because I feel like she's still leery of multiplication and division.  I'm excited!!

Busy Busy Busy

        Life has been crazy around here the last couple days!  We're getting ready to go to Myrtle Beach yay!!!!!  It will be the first vacation that we've taken all together as a family since 2004, and we only had Sophie back then.  I've been trying to dig out shorts, flip flops, get directions, and basically go nuts in the mean time lol.  We're leaving tomorrow and we'll be gone for 10 days.  I won't be posting while we're down there, but I'll take lots of pics and post them later :)

        We've mostly been talking about dinosaurs still.  Sophie has read the library book about a million times and showed it to everyone, including company that came to visit.  She's also got a free ebook on the kindle about dinosaurs and fossils that she's looked at a couple times along with a website she put on her favorites that is about dinos and has a bunch of educational type games.  Just about anything dinosaur involved has been happening here.  I had forgotten how much I liked dinosaurs and learning about them until Sophie got into them.  And a lot has changed in the last 18 years or so, I'm shocked!  Or maybe there is just more information out about them?  I don't know.  Its funny that she is becoming sooo into dinosaurs right now, because Jurassic Park is being re-released as 3D.  Sophie is DYING to go see it.  I'm seriously considering it, I want to see it myself!

       Sophie has decided that she is going to open up a bakery, sooner rather than later.  I'm going to look into what she needs to have in order to sell baked goods at a semi-professional level.  Obviously we don't have a building to house a business, but if we could make some stuff, package it, and sell it, she'd be happy to make a few bucks.  She has a whole list of things she wants to buy, and I think making her own money would help her to figure out what stuff she really wants and to appreciate it more. 

         I started crocheting a couple days ago.  Nothing fancy, a couple dish cloths, a pretty little flower/snowflake, and a granny square, but now Sophie is wanting to do that, too.  I'm going to teach her, but I need to get her a easier to handle crochet hook.  I tried with the one I have been using, and her fingers wouldn't do what she wanted.  She has fine-motor skills issue, which I think is coming into play here.  I'm hoping by doing something she WANTS to do, not really HAVING to learn, it will be a mind over matter situation.  She is still struggling with shoe laces, but that isn't fun, so it doesn't hold much appeal.  If she can get the hang of it, I think we'll do a mother-daughter project with it.  I was thinking about getting a real fine, white yarn and making Christmas tree ornaments :)  We usually have homemade ornaments on our tree.

Dragons and Castles

                 The kids got to play with the sensory bin I created yesterday.  All 3 started out excited to play with it, but after the first, ohh 20 minutes? only Max was playing with it.  Sophie said it was a little boring, Little Man didn't really offer a reason, but Max had a blast with it.  Sophie went back to it a couple times over the course of the day, playing for maybe 10 minutes at a time.  I joined in at one point, just because it seems like such fun.  The colors are super vibrant and the kool aid left it smelling a lot like fruity pebbles.  During our joint play session, Sophie messed around with the 1/8 measure and the 1/3 measure.  She estimated that 4 scoops of the 1/8 measure would fill the 1/3 measure and then we tried it.  3 filled it up pretty much, so she said 3/8 was almost equal to 1/3.  I didn't do the actual math until later, but she was pretty darn close.  3/8 equals 9/24, and 1/3 equals 8/24.  She does so well with math when its in real life situations!  I'm proud of her :)

 

It started off so pretty and neat lol

 

After the kids were done =/  It still smells yummy though

 

            Gary found a castle playhouse the other day, too.  The kids have been wanting a play house for a while now, but our plan had been to build one when we had the time/money.  This was in perfect condition though and such a neat idea!  The kids were excited when he brought it home, but it was kind of late, so they didn't get much play in besides a couple times down the slide.  Yesterday, the sun was shining enough that they were able to really get out there and enjoy it.  Sophie took the lead, as usual, and decided that they were going to pretend that the yard was their kingdom and Max was the King, she was the Princess, and our cat, Bad Kitty, was the dragon protecting the castle.  Little Man wasn't home yet, or I'm sure he would have been recruited to be something too lol.  They played forever at that castle play house! 

 

 



 

             Sophie is getting more and more interested in dinosaurs lately.  We got that book from the library, and she had me look up some stuff online for her to look at.  We found some print out information cards on quite a few species of dinos, and she's been looking at them.  She's amazed at how big they really were and has theorized that maybe WV didn't have any because we are so mountainous, and that didn't leave much room for the dinosaurs to move around where they were so big.  I hadn't thought of that myself, and I can't find any research that suggests that, but its as plausible as anything else!  She also watched an episode of Octonauts on Disney Jr about Narwhal whales and was interested in those.  We looked up some pictures of real Narwhals and read about how they are hunted for their horns and blubber.  We also read how their horns can grow to be 10 feet, and baby Narwhals are around 5 feet long at birth.  That is just a bit taller than she is now, at 9, and that amazed her.  She was especially interested in how their horns were once mistaken for unicorn horns.  She made the connection that sailors also thought manatees were mermaids in the past.  She said that many legends were later debunked to be new animals that people just hadn't ever seen before, and that as science learns more, legends are often left behind for the truth.  She's enjoying this way of learning science much more than textbook learning!  I think it helps that this is all about animals, which interest her anyway lol

Library!!

               We went to the library today and got a bunch of books!  The kids always love going there and playing with the puzzles and picking out books.  Its a little rougher on me, since the boys are in one room and Sophie has moved on to the Young Adult section and everyone wants Momma at one time...    One of the main books we got this time is a dinosaur book that focuses on 5 (I think) dinos.  Sophie was disappointed because it didn't include the T-Rex, which is her favorite, so we'll have to get some more out when we go back.  We also researched what kind of dinosaurs lived in West Virginia, only to find out NONE :(  There has been no evidence of actual dinosaurs in our state, but in all surrounding ones.  I think that news disappointed us ALL.  Sophie and the boys invented their own species of dinosaur that they are calling the Sugarloaf dinosaur.  It has 3 different "calls" that signal either danger, hunger, or spotting another Sugarloaf dinosaur.  They made up a walk/run for the dinosaur (sort of up on your toes, with your arms cocked back like chicken wings lol), and its a carnivore apparently because it eats chicken and ham.  Creative little buggers lol

    
           The kids played outside for a while, before the wind sent them back inside.  They set up a play tent and some chairs and toys to be a camp site.  Sophie is so much like me with wanting things ordered "just so".  She wouldn't use all 5 chairs because they didn't line up the right way (in other words evenly).  It really was too chilly for Max outside though, and they came in before getting too into the campground play.  Hopefully it warms up more soon.  I have been wanting to go walking and see if we can spot more Springtime signs, but I'm not trying to freeze my butt off in the process.

           I was finally able to make it to the grocery store, since Gary has the next 3 days off, and I bought the stuff to make the kids the sensory bin!!  I bought a big 5 lb bag of rice for a couple bucks and some packets of kool aid.  It was a super simple process:  put a cup of rice, a packet of kool aid, and 1 teaspoon of alcohol in a gallon Ziploc bag, get as much air out as possible then smoosh to your heart's content.  Let the rice "soak" in the bag for 15-20 mins, then dry on trays.  It did take a couple hours for it to dry... or rather SOME of it.  Red and purple dried crazy quick, then the orange, then the green.  Blue took forever and a day and the kids were going crazy looking at it drying and not being about to touch it.  I lined it up in the bin, but I know as soon as the kids get into it tomorrow it will be all mixed up.  Oh well!  It's pretty for now lol.  I really like the kool aid method because the fruity smell masks the alcohol smell after its dried, and its an added sensory tool.  I'm going to let them play with this for a while and when they seem to be getting bored, I'll switch up the stuff in it.  I'm thinking of making homemade moon sand next.   This time I just put a couple spoons and measuring cups in, but I'll let the kids add stuff if they choose as well.

 

The rice drying in little foil trays I made

 

The sensory bin set up BEFORE the kids get a hold of it

 

 

             All the talk of dinosaurs and prehistoric West Virginia got Sophie thinking.  We had touched on the fact that WV was once inhabited by Adena Indians, who were mound builders, before.  Gary's dad lives on a piece of property that once had a mound, but it was desecrated a long long time ago.  Sophie wanted to see if there was any pictures of it online, but alas there was not.  I think it was robbed too long ago, like before photographs, and I'm fairly certain the grave robbers didn't think to sketch it before they tore it apart lol.  But in doing that, we happened across an article about the Beards Fork petroglyphs, which are just a couple miles from us.  Gary grew up in the area and had never seen them, so we are planning a exploration trip when it warms up.  He has seen similar ones up his dad's holler though, and is trying to remember exactly where they are so we can go look at them too.  This time period really interests us all and its nice to have a piece of history literally in your back yard.